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Chaos in Syria, Part I – 3 Motives and 7 Countries

In this first month of 2016, we can be grateful that World War III didn’t start over Russia’s intervention in Syria that saw Turkey, a NATO member, shoot down a Russian jet. If Russia had retaliated, the other NATO members – U.S., U.K., Germany, France etc. ­– would have been obligated to join the fight. But it’s not over yet. The chaos in Syria – and the Middle East, in general – is now spilling over to Europe and the rest of the world. Millions of refugees, fanatic jihadists, hundreds of thousands of dead civilians, powerful nations colliding with another … all add up to a nightmarish powder keg.

The driving forces behind this bedlam are the perfect storm of confluence of geopolitics, oil, war-profiteering and religion. If that is not enough, there are several countries and jihadist groups involved in this conflict, with bewildering relationships that are often temporary, conflicting and totally Machiavellian.

Among the countries involved, the key outside players who have been trying to bring down the Syrian government are the U.S. and its six dwarfs: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France, Israel and Britain. The seventh dwarf is really a collection of nations that occasionally offer help, but are not deeply involved in the Syrian project. Germany, Kuwait, Bosnia, Canada etc. would fall under the category of “seventh dwarf.”

Now, what in the world would all these countries have against a tiny country of Syria that most people can’t even locate on the map? Part I of this analysis will look into the three motives of seven countries that essentially form the Coalition of Regime Change.